Ask HN: Is there a developer laptop that does not suck and is not a Mac in 2022?

You don't say where you are located, but unless you are in one of the few places where Dell doesn't offer on-site next business day support then XPS 13 is a great laptop.

Their support is amazing: "We're not sure what is causing it, but we'll send someone to replace the whole motherboard tomorrow." "OH, your currently halfway across the world on a island? No problem, we'll be there tomorrow"

I really don't understand how it's done. Clearly they must have parts distributed ahead of time.

I'm just amazed that it's included in the price considering the cost of sending a technician out to a customer. The fact that even here on HN a lot of people think Apple's support is good suggests that Dell might be able to save a ton of money by lowering their support level, so I don't really get why they offer it.

I absolutely love my Framework laptop for dev. I feel the software support is also quite good, at least for Fedora which is explicitly supported. I got the DIY edition and put everything together, including installing Fedora, in under 1 hour. And I'm a really slow guy, haven't build a computer in 10 years - its too easy with framework.

This laptop is really build to be repairable and modular and it does not suck at all. I think it will last a long time.

The ability to choose your own edition also means I got a reasonably affordable laptop with loads of RAM, which I find is quite useful for development.

Please excuse the long-winded answer...

I have also given up on Apple, but mostly because I can't see the value in it anymore, otherwise my experience with them has been satisfactory (Intel CPU models).

For the past few years I used a Microsoft Surface Pro because it seemed to have good build quality and high screen resolution, but despite this I have had to replace it as part of a recall due to a graphics hardware issue, so it was not without its flaws. On a side note, I found the Windows OS to be OK for non-dev work, but would always "work" on the Linux subsystem... so even though Windows supports it quite well, I would just suggest 100% Linux.

For 2022 I decided to buy a "gaming" laptop and switch to 100% Linux. The build quality is a little lower than Apple, and the screen resolution is not as good as Apple or Surface Pro, but it is still good, and when using my external monitor there is no difference.

The benefits are clear, however, for less than 50% of the cost I am getting superior performance, discrete GPU, excellent cooling, and NO LOCK-IN. There is also the added benefit of being able to play the occasional video game with great performance.

So far I don't regret it.

The current (2022) LG Gram come with Intel Alder Lake and dual USB4/TB4, they basically seem to be the only interesting competitors to the lightweight Apple laptops. The 14" model is 1.0 kg compared to the M1 Macbook Air at 1.3 kg.

Linux compatibility is very good with current kernels (I had a few DRM/GuC restarts with 5.18, those seem to be fixed in 5.19), all hardware works out of the box. ADL-P power management is still being worked on afaik, so for the time being it seems like the power profile you set does have a larger than usual impact - powersave results in 20-30h runtime, balanced more like 10. The base models have a 1240P, which is an "4C8T + 8C8T" CPU (for a total of sixteen threads).

The CNVi Intel wifi in these doesn't seem to have the 5G bug.

Edit: One issue with virtually any better-ish new laptop will be that the display won't be native sRGB. The LG Gram series uses P3 displays, for example (most will be similar), which means that colors will be over-saturated and especially reds will be very intense and orange-y. MacOS has the correct color management to deal with this, Windows and Linux don't really, and Wayland in particular has very poor support for color management. I've manually set a generic P3 profile in Firefox and that pulls most colors back into a more agreeable shape.

Last year I became annoyed with some of the MacOS limitations and decided I wanted a laptop capable of running Linux.

I settled on the Thinkpad X1 Nano. It weighs less than a MacBook Air, has a matte HiDPI screen, which is great for sunlight, a built in camera shutter, and most importantly, a great keyboard experience. I also splurged and added a 5G modem. The laptop is spill and dust proof and can clearly take more of a beating than a MacBook could. It's designed to be rugged while traveling.

This laptop has been an absolute delight. It feels like nothing is in my backpack, which is a nice complement to my stronger desktop at home. The performance is good enough for my development workflow, and the battery is fine to last during my workday. The only negative I would say is that the battery life is noticeably shorter than the M1 MacBook Air I previously had, but it's not terrible. Just not amazing. The laptop runs relatively quietly, which was another factor I wanted.

I'm running Fedora Linux on it, which I've come to enjoy more than MacOS. If you're looking for a nicer laptop to rival a MacBook, you'd be hard pressed to find a better option in my opinion. I spent about $1300 in total on this laptop.

Lenovo's paid warranty has been fantastic for me in the multiple countries where I've used it (Sweden, Hong Kong and Mexico). In all three they sent out a local service technician that fixed the problem on-site.

Once it was a a worn out SSD that was replaced with one twice as big as that was the only thing they had in stock (Sweden), another time it was a broken connector on the motherboard (Hong Kong) and the third time it was a broken display (Mexico, Cozumel). I was most impressed by the service in Mexico as it's pretty far from any major cities and the technician came out after only a day.

If good warranty service is important to you I cannot recommend enough to get a Lenovo (T, P or X series) laptop and shell out for the extra warranty.

Laptops are all together awful. I can't imagine working on one for more than a few hours. My self built desktop blows any laptop out of the water in speed, comfort, reliability, upgrade / repair potential and ergonomics (obviously ignoring portability).

Warning: in the past couple of years, manufacturers that shipped perfectly decent products have started replacing good components and build quality with unusable crap. If something has to sit in front of you for hours, you want materials that do not hinder you while you are operating. Expect the successors of some formerly very good lines to be noisy on touch (as in, tapping on a cardboard box), to be unpleasant on touch (with reference to touchpads), to stink. Plus, heavily tinted displays with spotlights, etc. Nowadays, you must assess it physically, not just on on-paper specifications.

Related from 4 months ago "Ask HN: What’s a good laptop for software development at around $2k?" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31094361 First comment-thread is about Apple but once collapsed the next 10 are non-Apple recommendations.

I'm a happy owner of a Dell Precision 5520 that is already 5 years old. It shipped with a Ubuntu LTS by default and I took a 3-year next day repair warranty that I used once for a swollen battery. I cannot express how happy I was to have my laptop repaired in less than an hour in my kitchen by a Dell certified technician. Given how dependent I am on my computer for work, if I had to send it I would have lost at least a week of productivity. Instead, it was just a minor inconvenience. Sh*t happens, but I would pay for this peace of mind every time.

For my next laptop, I'm waiting for Framework to open shipping to Switzerland. It won't come this kind of warranty but its full repairability will make up for it.

What country is this?

People are suggesting Frame Work laptops but if you don’t have official Apple support, it’s even less likely Frame Work ships to this country and if you managed to get one you’d have no support.

I imagine you need to go the Dell XPS or Lenovo route.

Thinkpad X1 (Yoga/Carbon) do great for heavy use developer laptops. I use them since the first generation, with Linux as operating system. Never had serious issues with drivers, even wacom, digitizer and auto display rotation are working nowadays, not to speak of USB-3, fingerprint sensors, etc. The whole device is a no-brainer and just works.

Nope. Its all buggy and shitty. Dell XPS had coilwhine for several ages despite numerous complaints and other laptops with same chipsets didn't. The cause? Cheaping out on inductors. Lenovo has firmware issues I just returned my laptop which gone black screen due to some suspend/sleep state at random. This is a huge issue btw affecting more than 20-30+ models. Actually Lenovo support guy I asked for his recommendation said he got the M1 Macbook Air lol, the other one I spoke to said the only one he didn't have complaints about was their flagship P1 model. The previous Dell I tried ordering had GPU DOA. Honestly I don't give a shit about the on-site support the other guy mentioned, its just a bandaid on the problem that all laptops suck, but more often than not no matter how many times you replace a motherboard you can't fix these glaring issues! Its the QUALITY of the motherboard that sucks!

Macbooks aren't perfect either despite having better wifi, audio (and lower noise-floor). I would not choose a Macbook unless an employer gave it to me for free, but then I would without a doubt choose one. Will the logic board fail after 1 year warranty or a year after? Or have other quirks? Most likely!

Android is the same btw, ask me why I run iPhone despite being the largest android fanboi previously.. everything was terribly broken and half-baked.. The only android device I own now is my SONY X900H TV and since latest update it has started to reboot itself at random.

I'm fed up with this..

Switch to Linux. Using MacOS locks you into proprietary hardware. By focusing on the software rather than the hardware, you can switch hardware manufactures as they oscillate in quality.

Going with something like NixOS would make this even easier as your operating system setup could easily be migrated to another machine when the time comes.

I've seen your post as a comment before. For India, I recommend buying Dell / Lenovo if you really want on-site repairs for cheap, otherwise I recommend Asus.

I recently bought Asus Zenbook 14 Oled (12th gen) over M1 MacBook Air and I absolutely love it. It has 75Wh battery, excellent speakers and with a nice 90Hz 14inch display.

However, I can't use Fedora on it since sound over speaker doesn't work yet.

Dell's Inspiron 14 is a decent purchase for around 65k ( with on-site & accidental damage warranty )

On a side note, my gaming laptop MSI GF 65 died and I was able to walk into a service centre in Bangalore, and they literally replaced the motherboard for free and returned it in 3 weeks. The entire process was extremely simple.

I love my Lenovo ThinkPad. For a laptop, the keyboard is amazing and I have been using it for 4 years now without any major issue. I did have the CPU fan die on me, but with Lenovo's practically 10/10 repairability score for 40 bucks I overnighted another CPU fan, just unscrewed the back and replaced it myself.

I had an xps 13 9300 and struggled with battery life on any Linux distro ( tried fedora, Ubuntu, pop, elementary, solus, Arch, void ) and I'm not a beginner or anything. Even with combinations of tlp, powertop, gnome power profiles, kernel shit to make it run lower speed.

Framework is really nice from a hardware perspective, but the display res is wonky with scaling, 100% is small and 200% is big, which puts you in the no no zone on most display servers which employ fractional scaling. MacOS is the only I've ever used that doesn't completely butcher oddball scales. Battery life I've observed to be around 4 hours of light usage on stock fedora. (11th gen main board)

I personally run a new MacBook Pro M1 running any Linux I want in Lima or parallels, depending on GUI needs. Damn thing is god tier on battery, outlasts any other laptop I've ever owned by a factor of 3 at least.

Fedora works beautifully on Thinkpads. And Lenovo next day support plans, in the numerous geographies in which they are available, really are that.

Fedora is quite different from MacOS, to be sure. But if you use package management, the terminal, and VSCode- those bits are pretty much the same.

I listen to a lot of Jupiter Broadcasting podcasts [0], their content is Linux related. I hear a lot of positive things about the HP Dev One [1]. JB's Coder Radio is a nice podcast about Linux and Software Development [2], although they really like their macs (which to me shows they are pragmatic and realistic), they indeed highly issues with the m.X chip based macs and what good alternatives are.

[0]: https://new.jupiterbroadcasting.com/

[1]: https://hpdevone.com/

[2]: https://new.jupiterbroadcasting.com/show/coder-radio/480/ Note, I'm, linking to their new websites which are in beta but hey, lets stress-test them a bit ;)

I run a Lenovo X1 Carbon that I've yet to send to the grave. It also works exceedingly well if you run Linux that also happens to supports firmware updates.

Dell Latitudes are pretty great for mid-range and very affordable. You get tons of ports, a FHD screen in 14" variant, nvme ssd + tons of ram, plus you get service manuals for the hardware. Dell has pretty good support in most countries. Also, the UEFI/BIOS is actually pretty great, it gives you tons of control over the hardware! If you keep it plugged in most of the time and switch off battery savings and so on, it is quite a beast. I tend to run mine in the middle mode where it doesn't use turboboost but also doesn't down clock it too much, thus the fans are silent and the machine still very fast. Very happy with mine.

If you are forced to pick between Dell and Lenovo, take the Dell. Skip all the other brands/model variants (even from Dell) as they are more consumer oriented (better speakers but no gigabit lan port...). If you need something with a beefy gfx card, then rather buy an Asus gaming laptop, but they tend to be heavy and noisy but packs quite a punch.

If you are going to use Linux on it and value your sanity, do not take one with an nvidia chip (intel/amd chips works out of the box). If you were solely going to use windows, prefer one with an nvidia chip. If you can get a Ryzen 5/7 -based laptop at a good price, take it instead of an i5/i7.

Lastly, most manufacturers, including Dell, usually use very basic OEM ram and ssd's and wifi chips. So it is worthwhile to swap out your ram with faster and bigger ram sticks, make sure they run in dual channel (so rather buy 2x16gb instead of 1x32gb), and buy a proper nvme ssd (I typically go for one of the samsung ones with 5 year warranty).

Depends on what you are working on, but don’t dismiss buying a cheap chromebook with a decent screen and using a cloud instance. A lot of IDE plugins make it an even better experience. Just make sure you are near the data centre and it’ll be better then you think.

I have Dell XPS 13 2015 (9350). It gets fair abuse and fell on floor couple of times. Over years I replaced keyboard, battery, charging port, bottom plate from case (display hinge broke). All parts are on ebay for like $50 and can be replaced with a screedriver and YouTube video. I decided to keep this laptop indefinitely and just keep replacing parts. I also have spare laptop of the same type, so I can just swap SSDs or parts if it breaks. It is still decent machine, 7 hours on battery, 1.2 kg, nice touch display, excellent keyboard, 16GB RAM, USB-C charging....

From my workstation I need 64GB RAM, good cooling and many ports (4x displays etc). I do not feel any current laptop provides that. And I do not want to pay $7000 premium for decent machine. So at end I decided for mini PC (Asus PN 52). It is 1kg tiny box, can be carried daily and is very cost effective.

My personal laptop is Dell XPS13 Developer ed. It's nearly a year old and works like a charm I can install anything I want, I can watch whatever. Battery wise last a lot.. 5-8h average depending on what I'm doing.

At work I'm force to use a MacBook, a lot of dev tools don't work very well or doesn't work, every dev has different weird issues, every other day we have a different thing that doesn't work some of us had to request to replace the MBP for a different one because it was very slow and the battery only last 2h if you are lucky.

I will second the others who have recommended Lenovo: I have a Legion 5 I originally bought for gaming but the keyboard is so good I find myself using it for nearly all my development.

Additionally, the Dell Precision line (the business workstation-replacement line) is exceptional for development, but those can be as expensive as equivalent MacBooks. Stay away from Dell's pure consumer line: the build quality is absolutely awful.

ASUS OLED Zenbook Ryzen 5900 + Manjaro. Perf benchmarks compare to an M1 at half the price. The Wifi network card driver doesn't handle hibernates too well, so you need to disable your network manually before (Or replace the network adapter card as some have done).

I love my super heavy and bulky Lenovo P53. Love it for horsepower, also because Arch runs on it n without problem, and finally because tech support exceeded my expectations, doing cleaning after 2 years for free (part of cleaning was to recover from little coffe spill...). I would prefer if it was not so plasticky, but I can't have everything :)

FYI, Ubuntu has a list of certified laptops: https://ubuntu.com/certified/laptops

I like Lenovo, their worldwide maintenance deal appears good, but I suspect the fundamental problem you have is in some ways, your economy, unless you can convince me the repair story doesn't happen with other vendors. And, if thats the case, the other vendors are looking pretty solid as a choice.

Dell is good, in cycles. I only every bought in the bad years. If I wasn't on an Apple Mac I'd be on a thinkpad, or a chrome book at this point: run in VMs in the cloud, minimise dependency on the desktop.

My last laptop purchase was a comparatively cheap £300 HP something-or-other back in 2018, to avoid using my work laptop for personal projects. It only has 8GB RAM, a 256GB SSD and an 8x core i5, but I find it perfectly adequate for my development needs.

I'm running the latest Ubuntu on it, and it works nicely for running simultaneously an instance of VS Code, and a Windows VM in VirtualBox, and Firefox.

I mostly do reverse engineering projects, and development in node and C++. It's been reliably fine for this, and I'm not worried about it being damaged or lost as it was relatively inexpensive.

The camera is awful and the sound isn't great. And I can't run anything that requires massive computational power like AI models, but that's not what I'm really interested in.

I would advise just getting the cheapest laptop that does what you need. The expensive Apple kit is unnecessary in my opinion.

Currently using a T490s (win-based on WSL, work machine) and a T480s (Fedora, upgraded to 24gb ram) for personal projects and they're both fine machines. The T480s runs a bit cooler after a repaste than the T490s but I'd say they can handle fine whatever I throw at them.

Checkout system76, slimbook, tuxedo computers or the framework laptop. All of these companies make amazing laptops.

I've just switched from Surface Book 2 to Zenbook 14 OLED (UX3402ZA)

Pros:

- beautiful, bright display with 16:10 aspect ratio

- comfortable keyboard with backlight

- pretty decent battery life for my programming needs

- port selection (1 x USB 3.2 (2 Gen), 2x Thunderbolt 4, HDMI and audio jack)

- good performance

- beautiful design

Cons:

- if you try to run some games on it (it has Iris Xe Graphic card) - it will become hot very quickly

I've choose Zenbook, because I had one in the past (UX32LN model) - and it still holds up pretty well and works flawlessly while being used for office stuff by my wife (it will have 7 years now)

I've been using a Clevo-based laptop for years - very good value and works well with Linux. Just don't expect something light-weight with a great battery life - but if you're happy to carry more weight (it's actually good exercise..) and mostly plug it in that's fine. In Australia you can buy from https://www.metabox.com.au/

I still use 12year old Dell laptop. Runs Ubuntu 20.04 smoothly.

I have ES, MySQL, firefox with 20tabs, vscode and all running at the same time and still have half cores and memory free.

Android studio is the only thing I hate to run on this machine.

I've loved my Thinkpad X1 Xtreme for years now. I was given the choice of what I wanted to be issued for my job and it has served me well. Would I buy it for my personal use? No. I am not a fan of Lenovo being a Chinese company now, and it's very boring. I still haven't had any problems with it.

Before this machine I was issued a Dell XPS and the battery life was amazing for a Wintel laptop, great speakers and a unique power button + fingerprint reader button in one, but it had a ton of BIOS based issues and quirks. It always seems to me it takes years for them to work all the bugs out vs other companies. Dell is like a lot of companies where I prefer their designs over everyone elses, but I just can never bring myself to love them.

For personal use for fun or as a consultant, I'd reach for a Samsung laptop. They lag behind on CPUs and such but they're my pick. For a fleet, I'd probably have to go Lenovo out of necessity for the support.

In my workplaces in Germany the service desks were terrified every time there was a need to repair of submit warranty claim for an Apple hardware, in less developed EU countries simply assume the warranty or repair options do not exist. You're throwing a sack of golden coins at an American moloch and counting that the device will not fail.

lenovo p1 is basically an intel mbp 15. camera and audio aren't as good as the mac, although i hear the camera has improved in later generations.

bigger issue is that the nvidia graphics are wired to the thunderbolt ports, so if you want to drive external displays you have to run with discrete graphics enabled which means battery life suffers or complications involving frequent bios config changes. this too may have been addressed in later generations though.

the p1 and x1c are probably best in class, with the t as a close second if you can tolerate more heft in exchange for more tradeoffs from size to performance and expandability.

traditionally the thinkpads have had some of the best linux support thanks to their popularity amongst linux developers. this may be changing though as linux gains popularity and developer oriented alternatives like system76, framework and lambda gain steam.

thinkpads are also known for build quality, but that gap may be narrowing as well.

If you can get a decent display in your region (because they usually nickel and dime European users and do unfathomable part sourcing), Lenovo are usually a good choice.

I am a Portuguese Mac user and we still don’t have an official Apple Store in my country (although there are a few third-party certified support centres) and have been using mostly Surface laptops at work, but with the Apple Silicon switch I bought a mid-range Lenovo Ryzen laptop solely for running and building x86 Linux packages, and I am pretty happy with it even though it is plasticky and hardly as polished.

I suspect the high end ones might be suitable, although to be fair I had an X1 Carbon a few years back and loathed it - it was the reason I opted for Surface laptops to run Windows.

I spent months trying to answer this very same question, and stumbled upon the LG Gram.

Best purchase of my developer career.

17 inch, backlit keyboard, 10 key numpad, great battery, trackpad equal or better to Mac, under 3 pounds, usb c charging.

The full package.

(Bonus: put MS PowerToys on it and remap the keyboard layout to your liking)

I am happy with my Lenovo X1 extreme running pop os. It has been running for 4 years, just changed battery and hard-drive, which I could easily do myself. It is of high build quality.

I terribly want to try out a system76 computer, but haven't had the chance yet.

I see no one has mentioned Razer, but I'm on my second Razer Blade and I really like them as a Linux dev laptop which I can occasionally use for CUDA tasks. My first was a 13" Blade Stealth and now on a rebranded 15" Blade Advanced (Lambda Tensorbook). If you (or your company) can stomach the cost, it's a very well built machine with about the same amount of quirks as any other "Linux supported" laptop out there.

I ran 17" and 15" System76 Oryx Pros before switching to a Razer and was not impressed by the hardware nor the Linux support considering it was a "Linux supported" laptop from the start.

Look for a small business laptop with on-site support (Lenovo or Dell) in your country. Not their consumer lines but their business ones. You have to pay extra for that support and but it's worth it. If it's available in your country

Here's some zoom-out options.

If you travel a lot and have to work, you need mobility, but possibly not as much as you think. If compact wireless input devices and a hotel TV, borrowed screen or correctly configured tablet may be adequate, then you only need a compute box not a full laptop and you can consider higher end ARM boards and a purchased or custom battery bank.

If you don't have a huge travel requirement, you may be better off buying two desktops than one laptop as they are far cheaper, easier to maintain/repair, provide better input devices, better and far more upgradable. Carry your data around on a USB stick or SSD.

Always buy Business models of any brand. Lenovo? Buy Thinkpad. Dell? Latitude or Precision. HP? Probook or Elite. Business models are made to last, since companies buys them in batches of about 5 years and when they fail, the brand has to replace them. HP is a brand that usually sucks but my wife (then my gf) bought a HP from the business model and it lasted more than 10 years. There’s a reason why consumer laptops cost less than $1,000

I have an MacBook Pro, which I really like. I recently wanted a second machine, running Linux, which I could (part of the time) use as a large tablet. I settled on a ThinkPad X1 Yoga, which I ordered with Ubuntu. It arrived with Ubuntu 20.04, which I immediately upgraded to 22.04. Everything worked fine out of the box (I haven't tried the fingerprint reader). This machine is not quite as fast as the MacBook Pro, but plenty good enough for me. I spend most of my time on this machine in Emacs.

Both of these are pricy machines, but I'm really satisfied with them.

I find my Framework laptop really good. 4h+ battery life despite Linux lacking support for the best idle state, plenty of power for compiling, clean and solid build. Best part: You can repair it at home.

If you want lightweight alternatives to Macbooks, just beware that most of the small factor Windows laptops emit much greater fan noise comparing to M1/M2 Macs under load, although the Macs will probably reach similar levels on full load after a while. Recent platform designs target much higher power limit to achieve optimal performance, while the manufacturers keep pushing that envelope frame on sub 15" machines, creating conflicts between form and factor. Many recent Thinkpad and XPS machines have difficulties cooling the components.

I use an Alienware X17 for works including demanding graphics tasks. I know that Alienware does not have great reputation among enthusiasts, but at least for me it is pleasurable to use. Very decent build quality, sleek exterior design after lights off, amazing Cherry low-profile mechanical keyboard. On light modeling and compiling tasks there's barely any noise coming from the fan systems, and on higher load it isn't much louder comparing to M1 Max/Pro Macbooks, with performance being top-notch for sure. Overall very enjoyable experience comparing to lighter design systems, but the trade-offs are obvious too - 3kg+ weight, and the battery drains fast due to the aggressive power targets on CPU/GPU. It's clearly not for everyone, but if you need performance without workstation features (Quadro, ECC, Xeons), it's definitely worth a try.

I have a surface studio laptop and it’s great. Keyboard has good travel, trackpad has a nice click to it, build quality is sturdy, battery life gets me through the day, performance is great, and it has a pen/touch display to boot that folds down. I also have a MacBook Pro, and I much prefer the surface.

As far as support, I bought an extended support contract from Microsoft that I haven’t had to use yet, but I’ve gone through the replacement process with them in the past and it has been seamless. Highly recommended.

I'm joining the discussion late, but can convey my experience with HP Omen 16 (Advantage Edition). My primary requirement was full sizes cursor keys, and the PgUp/Down, Home/End/Insert/Delete keys. Proper keys are essential for developers. The keyboard is very good. The laptop has a full set of I/O (including 3 USB-A connectors). AMD Advantage Edition has proper Linux driver support (no nVidia), and the built in Vega is OK for low power mode.

However, the laptop is not without it's flaws. The power supply is a chunky brick, there is a driver bug with the Elan Touchpad (so you're constantly hitting Fn-F11 to disable/reneable touch pad when you dont have a mouse), and the dolts put a Pause key where Delete is (and put delete on top row, to the right of power button). The designer should be hit with a bag of potatoes, it's idiotic.

Otherwise, great silent laptop, works well in Windows 11, Linux and even Haiku (minus an ACPI powerup delay, but once it finally boots, it flies).

7 out of 10. (-1 for Pause/Delete/Power key placement, -1 for Elan Touchpad drivers, and -1 for placing 4 stupid stickers on the palm rest area). 7 out of 10 may look low, however I'd give other laptops an even lower score. My old 2014 MacBookPro would get 8 out of 10, and that is the best laptop I ever had. Sadly, not suitable in 2022.

It really depends on which company offers the best support in your country in this case, yeah? People can recommend whatever, but it’s most likely going to be someone living in the US.

The three aspects to consider when buying a laptop: Weight, Performance and Price.

Laptops that are cheaper and lighter weighted usually have a lower performance.

Laptops that have higher performance and lower price usually are heavy weighted.

Laptops that have higher performance and lighter weight are usually pricey.

You have to sacrifice one of the three.

I’d personally go for the Dell Precision 5520.

Cheap, high performance, moderate weighted.

P.S. (usually) heavier laptops are more upgradable and repairable so thats why I chose to sacrifice the weight for the other two…

I am a 25 year Apple user but wanted to work on VR more alongside my normal dev work while remaining portable.

The ASUS ROG Zephyrus G15 inch is an excellent laptop. Fast, AMD Ryzen 9, NVIDIA 3070 or 3080, 32 GB RAM up to 48 GB, good battery, decent keyboard and trackpad, lots of ports, fast HDR 1440p screen.

only two issues from my late 2020 model: fans get hot and loud when you push it (this may have gotten better), and previous versions to 2022 had no camera.

I think the Dell XPS line is fine.

Can I recommend a ThinkPad P series with Linux and some tuning? I've had nothing but good experiences for the most part. The only things I wouldn't recommend is a 4K laptop screen, Lenovo's prices for upgrades, or trying to get good power management in Linux. Make sure your CPU fans are turning when hear goes up or fix thinkfan config and check lm-sensors and don't use hibernate and force sleep mode to old/compatible/S3/other OS/Linux or whatever the option is called for you. Note about windows sleep mode: Microsoft worked with new firmware manufacturers for laptops to include sleep mode that's actually not sleeping but the CPU runs at 400MHz with the screen off. All your apps are still on, your computer is online, and things are happening while you think it's asleep. It uses very little power so actually being asleep or being in this mode doesn't change battery drain too much. However Linux won't play ball and it'll just wake up your computer and drain your battery while heating up your laptop bag. Turn it off.

I'm about to buy an HP EliteBook 845 G9 to replace my current 830 G5 (which has been OK, replacing it because an i7-8550U is too slow to work with an external 4K display.)

My parameters were:

  - AMD CPU
  - possibility to install 64 GB of RAM; a factory option with 64GB soldered down would be OK (but I don't think this exists)
  - Thunderbolt / USB4 support
  - Metal / "rugged" frame
  - not noticeably larger than my current 830 G5 (310x235mm)

With these parameters there isn't all that much choice left. In fact, I originally had another parameter, on-board GigE LAN port, that I ended up sacrificing.

And to find devices matching those criteria - I can highly recommend Geizhals, e.g. for the above: https://geizhals.eu/?cat=nb&sort=p&xf=14285_64%7E1482_AMD%7E... . even if you're not in the EU, their index/filtering is fantastic (though be warned, parts of it are manually collected, errors MAY slip in. The USB4/TB data is particularly iffy. I still know of no better alternative.)

Since my laptop is my primary work tool, I do generally take out a 4-year int'l next business day + accidental damage protection plan ("CarePack" in HP lingo). I have actually had reason to make use of it on my previous laptop (8470p, spilled Coke into it) - no issues in getting that fixed. Due to timing (this was during christmas) they had to come back a second time after mostly-fixing it at first; some minor parts weren't immediately available (they did get it back to working). But, this is the extra service that costs +¼ of the laptop itself — I have no idea as far as "normal" warranty handling.

I'd look at the Xeon Lenovo machines (I think it was P series I was window shopping), Asus for design/gaming (their dual screen models are so nice in person, I found them to be slimmer than I expected), and Dell for something really solid/mass produced.

Essentially... Xeon Lenovo for "ultra enterprise", Asus for speed/looks/features, Dell for a "good laptop".

I dev on a System76 Pangolin running Pop! OS. My only complaint is that there's no Ubuntu terminal that I like as much as iTerm.

I bought an MBP 14" (Max, 32 core GPU, 32GB RAM, 2TB SSD) which I mostly don't regret. The things that give me pause are the battery life is only (only, haha) 9 hours or so, the resolution isn't ideal (the integer scaling options are either tiny or gigantic) and it was... $3,700? If I'd bumped down to the pro I would've saved money and gotten better battery life.

When I made this decision, I was between the Framework and a ThinkPad P14s Gen 2 AMD. I still think I made the right choice, but I think the P14s would've been a great option.

Lenovo hasn't released an AMD Gen 3 for the P14s, so you'd have to live with the ThinkPad T14 Gen 3 AMD instead (they're the same laptop, it turns out). It's:

- Ryzen 6850U

- 32GB RAM

- 14" 3840x2400 IPS Matte display (500 nits, 100% DCI-P3)

- 1080p camera

- $1,600

The extra nice thing about this is you get Ryzen and USB4, which lets you use eGPUs and the like.

---

All that said, I can't at all vouch for Lenovo support. If this is the defining characteristic for you I'd do more research before picking one of these up.

I cannot believe that it is so hard to even get a laptop without a numberpad. What are those manufacturers thinking? Apple has been delivering their laptops without numberpad for ages and it seems to work really well. At least give me the option to get rid of those (to me) usseless keys which also keep the touchpad from being centered to the screen.

I got in 2016 the Xiaomi Mi Notebook Air for about ~750$ and I'm still using it today (Ubuntu 20). The design is the most similar to Mac design, but with more ports (:D). When I bought it, the other option I considered was Dell XPS, and I see it's mentioned many times in the comments.

Not sure if this falls in line with your workstyle but...

I'm using a few XCP-NG vm's for anything dev related(including test environment). I keep a few main images depending on what I'm working on and just add/remove resources if/when needed. A lot more effective (for me) than being tied to a specific machine.

I carry with me a cheap 13" laptop and my phone, both with VPN's set up to dial in into my home network. I can use either. When I'm travelling somewhere I don't even take the laptop. I only have a foldable keyboard, mouse, small pocket projector.

For remote connectivity without my VPN I use Splashtop business (very very rare). It happened to me a few times that the VPN was not working over 4G (still don't have a cliue why)

This is tangential to the discussion, but are there any laptops that won't heat up your legs/groin when used on your lap?

I remember owning an Asus UL30VT [1] 10 or 15 years ago, and I could have it on my lap for hours without feeling any heat regardless of the CPU load. It was a bit crappy in other ways, but a joy to use on the go!

It seems like nowadays all manufacturers try to keep the components cool, but don't care much about the external chassis temperature. Even laptops that use ultra low voltage CPUs usually go for fanless setups instead of trying to improve external temperatures.

[1] https://www.notebookcheck.net/Asus-UL30VT.27130.0.html

Frame work laptop

HP Dev One!!

It's a recently launched laptop, specially focused on developers and comes with PopOS. I've haven't seen a single bad review of this laptop. Only available in US though.

https://hpdevone.com/

A few years ago i invested a full month's wage into buying leasing return thinkpads from ebay. Its basically pre-selected business hardware for few bucks. The hardware is from around 2010, so its fine for everything except gaming and electron apps.

My company gives us a Dell Precision 5560 (big-co equivalent to Dell XPS, same chassis and everything), and it's pretty good. And we have next-day on-site support from Dell, but I don't think we've ever used it these last few years.

Can anyone comment on System76 vs. Framework and what you chose or maybe if you used both?

Shilling XYtech's repurposed Intel/12-core/64GB/matte-screen/2TB/VGA/Trackpoint/USBC/ laptops! Nothing better imo, unless he adds an E-Ink option!

Quite honestly I don't know what people are doing to their laptops to say anything bad about the Dell XPS. Statistically, it seems the overwhelming majority agrees they're great though.

I've never even had to call customer support, I've been running PopOS on a specced out XPS15 for years which I installed myself, overriding the factory-installed Windows with no issues whatsoever (honestly just one minor firmware detail that was easily solved).

ROG g14 , handles all the dev task and build quality is solid ! Been using it for over 2 years and zero problems as of now , apart from the sleep thing . Had to switch to hibernate mode

Mac's started sucking with their SW problems (usable until around High Sierra), their deprecation of 32bit, glossy displays and ultimately made it impossible with their broken keyboards. They fixed that, but I'm long gone since.

My new cheap Lenovo AMD Ryzen 3 Thinkpad is far better and faster, just horribly heavy and low battery compared to the mac airs. The M1 Air is tempting, but they still have their broken SW.

XPS 15 using newest Ubuntu. 100% happy. Just get the nongpu version. Also newest Ubuntu is important (22.04).

Even bluetooth and open wifi works really well now haha. (Those were my biggest pain points)

Would love to find a well built high performance non gaming AMD 6x00H laptop. Bonus points if it’s really quiet and has good cooling so it will run without throttling (much). Weight, screen, keyboard and battery life not an issue I won’t unplug it or carry it around more than a few times per year (don’t ask, but yes it has to be a laptop).

All I can find is plasticky gaming rigs that some times don’t even have the pro/on-site support options, or lack option to not choose gaming GPUs.

It's still a Mac. But the i love the MacBook pro series from 2016-17. With ssd. Before they took away all the plugs. If my m1 would break I would probably just buy one of those from a reputable refurbished company. They are affordable, often between 500-800 (mostly dependent on hard drive size), and great specs. My new m1 theoretically is better, but I experience much more issues. And if any issues I can deal with the refurbished company, of which some offer great service.

I have Lenovo which offers a great on-site support, have been using Thinkpad X since X201 or something and now am extremely happy with Thinkpad P14s with 42G of RAM and especially an AMD Ryzen 7 Pro with 16 threads and which provides much better 3D hardware than what Intel provides, and still much cheaper. Only problem is battery that is not as great as Thinkpad X when you can upgrade to a double battery in addition to the one that's inside the laptop itself. I use Linux.

Laptop, desktop, chromebook, hardware support, doesn’t mean anything to me.

For the past 8 years I’ve used nothing but virtual desktops.

I connect to it from anywhere in the world on just about any device and I have my entire development environment available to me. I can spin up copies of it to try something out and then revert to a previous image. I can create full fidelity copies of it in minutes anytime I want to.

I cannot imagine going back to using physical hardware directly on the desktop anymore than I could a server.

Thinkpads are very good, I almost got myself one after around 5 years of working on macbooks, but in the end I got myself zephyrus g14 (2022 model). Surprisingly good battery life, good display (anti glare as well) and keyboard, amazing touchpad (very similar to macbook's one) and I actually like how win11 works on laptops after spending one day on tweaking settings and looks. Fantastic machine that performs as well as, or even better than, maxed out 14" mbp

Frame.work makes modular and highly repairable laptops - https://frame.work/

If you prefer to purchase from a more mature company, check out Fujitso laptops - https://www.fujitsu.com/global/products/computing/pc/noteboo...

I got work to buy me the SKU with the 3080 plus 3 year on-site warranty.

https://www.lenovo.com/au/en/p/laptops/legion-laptops/legion...

It runs about six copies of Rider without issue. Maybe I will take it out of low power mode if I have to run a seventh.

The backlighting sparks joy.

Apple’s customer support is truly terrible in countries where they don’t have an official presence.

My wireless Magic Keyboard with Numpad and Touch ID just stopped working one day. I took it to the Apple Premium Reseller store where it was purchased for service, and it took them FOUR AND A HALF MONTHS to replace it.

I should have walked out of that store with a new one in my hands, because it’s impossible to repair. I seriously wonder what took them four and a half months to realize that.

I find that the MSI business line of laptops to be topnotch and worth the money.

https://www.msi.com/Business-Productivity

I have the MSI Prestige 15 and it has been very reliable and a pleasure to work with.

I've had a Lenovo initially, but had all these problems with the web camera. It was a decent computer, but the camera is quite essential in this age of remote / hybrid work arrangements.

I am so dissatisfied with the state of the non-Apple PC world, particularly laptops, that I am tempted to do the insane thing and start a PC company.

Get this: https://rog.asus.com/laptops/rog-strix/rog-strix-scar-17-se-... It's currently the fastest laptop in the word. (scores 99th percentile on everything)

6 year old thinkpads aren’t any good anymore? I really like that the parts are widely available enough and cheap (or were) that you can do repairs yourself. I guess there are people doing more mission critical things around here. I’ve been really impressed by frameworks offering and their insistence to stay true to their word about repairability and upgradability

I don't have a dev one, but all of the reviews have been phenomenal. If I were looking to buy some hardware, it would be near the top of my list, here's a review: https://www.wired.com/review/hp-dev-one-linux-laptop/

I love System76 laptops. They are definitely crafted for developers. And I love their keyboard as well.

I agree they aren’t great with repairs.

In the UK it takes a week for it to leave the Apple Store after you drop it off. They then repair it quickly in the Czech Republic then ship it back. It can then take 1-2 weeks stuck at customs or at some UPS sorting centre with no updates to tracking.

It always feels like a 48 hour repair turns into a 3 week frustrating wait for your laptop back.

All I want is a laptop with mac quality case and components, magsafe equivalent and most of all... a direct sunlight readable screen (transreflective or something new and exotic). But honestly would happily take just about anything with a sunlight readable screen. Not trapped in an office, would like not to be trapped indoors when it's bright out.

I bought a fairly beefed up Dell xps 15 a year ago and put Ubuntu on it as I usually do. It's an amazing laptop with the only drawback being shockingly crappy battery life. Not sure if this is the laptop's fault though or Linux power management. I mostly use it docked so it's not a big deal for me. Overall I'm super satisfied.

I tried a surface and it's a sh*tshow.

Linux support is bad and windows is a joke.

I'm thinking the framework laptop if I really have too - but at this point my main problem is battery longevity. I don't think I would buy a non arm laptop at this point, so apple it is.

That said, I don't like the idea of buying apple too and that's why I'm buying just a desktop pc

Apologies in advance for being off-topic, but —

is it just my perception, or has it become increasingly common over the last year or two to end questions with _in <current year>_?

I vaguely associate that with SEO spam sites, and I feel a little pinch each time I see an actual person pick up that pattern. It is as if a black hat SEO trope has invaded our consciousness.

T series Thinkpad.

This is actually quite easy.

Dell Latitude, HP EliteBook or Lenovo ThinkPad. All work well with Linux and have good support and/or can be purchased with additional warranty.

Don't expect a 1:1 MacBook replacement though. Keyboards and touchpads are good these days, but battery life is worse and resolutions higher than 1920x1080 are rare.

I would recommend HP's 840 or 845 series. Easy to upgrade RAM and SSD, solid hardware, lots of ports, light but sturdy, very quiet, next business day on site guarantee available, relatively little bloatware, the older G8 even has buttons on touchpad which is handy for dragging but it's 16:9, G9 is 16:10!

Apple has a great opportunity to compete with Dell (and their XPS laptops) to re-conquer the mindshare of prosumers and IT professionals.

The Apple hardware is IMHO superior (in particular their trackpad), but the customer support is generally pretty bad, even when you live next to a physical Apple store.

I've had a good run with Dell XPS13 laptops running Linux. The only negative has been the battery swelling when it reaches the end of its life; you need to watch for this to avoid it damaging other components. Thankfully it's easy enough to replace the battery yourself.

I still enjoy the Thinkpad T series. They’re older and not sold new but they’re tough as rocks and meant to be user serviceable. Plus, reduce, reuse and all that.

If you’re doing bleeding edge graphics engine programming or ML it wouldn’t be my first choice unless you can deal with an external GPU.

Unless you are fine with paying again for a windows license & sub 10hr battery life, I'd recommend any of the Zephyrus lineup with Ryzen & Nvidia gpu if your workflow can make use of CUDA or else AMD GPU for cheaper & decent battery life, performance/$ as well.

I love my framework laptop. Runs linux perfectly, and has upgradable components.

The arch guide is also excellent. https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Framework_Laptop

My requirements are simple and hard, I need to have 2 4k monitors and preferably at 144hz. not that many businesses laptops can do that. I have settled for m1 pro, but I didn't pay attention that the hdmi output is only 2.0. so the second screen is only 60hz.

I actively use the XPS 13 from 2015 as my daily driver. I never had any issues besides a buggy broadcom wifi module that I recently swapped out for Intel which fixed all my issues. I can say I certainly got my money's worth & more from my machine!

I love my lenovo p14s. All amd, runs linux perfectly. shameless plug for my thoughts on the whole thing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGmcnENnVqg

Perhaps https://puri.sm/products/librem-14 should fit well for your requirements. I'm happy with their previous model, Librem 15.

I've been pretty happy with my HP elitebook. I don't even bother with an external keyboard. But upgrading the RAM is a bit more painful than it needs to be. Haven't made use of support yet, hope I won't have to!

I've been using System76 linux laptop (Kudu model, 21 inch screen, and awesome cooling fans) for a few years and it's working very well. It comes with Ubuntu pre-installed (although I switched to archlinux afterward)

I use a Dell Precision 5550 running Manjaro and it is an excellent machine, no complaints

I'm having a good experience with the Dell G15 (Core i7, 32gb of ram, NVIDIA GTX3060) on Ubuntu 20.04. Everything works (besides, ofc, what has never ever worked ever in Linux: suspend) and it's a very performant machine.

I like my Asus ROG Flow x13. Small, powerful, touch screen convertible with and a discrete GPU. If you can cope with the extra fan noise and shorter battery life then it is nicer than an M1 MacBook Pro for less money.

Since some HN readers have opted for gaming laptops, I would like to know their experiences with Linux. Did you have a problem with sleep mode, poor battery life, WiFi connectivity, GPU temperature, etc?

Legion gaming laptops (and I guess all similar) are fast. If they can run games, they can run compiler. At least this is an issue for me, compiling server on my own laptop takes time if there's not enough power.

I'm running a Thinkpad P1 Gen 3. It's built for workstation purposes (has a dedicated NVIDIA GPU branded as "Quadro" though VRAM is limited). It's got a 10th gen Intel CPU and so far it's been working great with Manjaro. I especially like the upgradeability of the RAM (added 16GB to make it 32GB, can switch to 32+32 in the future) and the ability to use two (replaceable) M.2 SSDs, which is something fewer and fewer "professional" laptops come with. The built-in fingerprint reader (which works well with Linux!) is a nice bonus. The trackpad is nice, the keyboard is good, the screen is 1080p with 4k as an option for more expensive models. GNOME's performance switcher (power saving/balanced/performance) works with the motherboard as of a year or so ago.

One thing I had to fix manually was the use of the special function keys (Fn+F9/10/11). I had to map them manually by adding some config to /lib/udev/hwdb.d/60-keyboard.hwdb mapping the scan codes I found by running evtest to the right key codes manually. Not a problem if you never use Fn+F9/10/11 to answer calls or open chat, but I just wanted them to work.

I have some issues, though I suspect my setup is to blame. Sometimes Linux doesn't boot when GDM takes control of the display. Haven't bothered figuring that one out yet. Nvidia's hardware is also a problem child as always; the external display runs through the Nvidia GPU, massively increasing heat and power draw the moment I hook up an external display. If you don't plan on doing simulations or playing games, I'd recommend staying clear of models with an Nvidia GPU, if you can.

Fan noise is very annoying in Windows, where it'll spin up for no good reason unless you put it in the slowest power saving mode. In Linux this isn't an issue, though your experience may differ depending on your choice of distro and power configuration.

I imagine the 12th gen Intel chips will blow this thing out of the water in terms of performance, but I plan on sticking with this laptop for a few years at least. It's more than fast enough.

As a bonus, I've heard good things about their extended warranty. Over here, they'll send parts ahead and then send a tech out to replace them for you. Someone I know had a touchpad that stopped working well and although it was probably a five minute fix with a standard screwdriver, they still sent a tech over to do the fix for him. Took maybe two or three days for everything to be done here but I've heard varying stories about their timeliness from different countries.

An Intel NUC 11 with a portable USB-C monitor should be inexpensive and flexible. If your OS won't run on it, it's probably broken.

I use a NUC11PAHi7, which is basically a Tiger Lake-UP3 mobile chipset minus a display.

Consider the Dell XPS15. It's a great laptop with a great display, keyboard and performance. I still have Macs at home, but for business work and development the XPS15 is fantastic.

Dell Precision 7 series or the Lenovo workstation equivalent whatever they call it. These two options have the official Linux support, everything else just gets progressively worse.

My coworkers really like their Xioami laptops. I'm not sure what country you're in, but in my "developing economy" country, their service has been perfectly decent.

I'm very happy with my Acer Aspire Nitro. The look is gamer-ish and case looks like cheap plastic, but my last on worked well for 5 years. Good AMD CPU + 3080 for <$1000.

I'd give the MSI Creator Z16 a look. Albeit, battery life is not amazing on [most] x86 platforms (compared to ARM platforms) though it should last notably longer on Linux.

Dell business level support is the best I've seen. My dad broke his laptop while overseas on a business trip and Dell sent a local service tech to his hotel to fix it.

https://kde.slimbook.es/ Linux powered out of the box, reasonably priced, great service.

I hated HP Elitebooks, but I've been happy with the HP Elite X2 G4/G8 tablet running Ubuntu. You can find them used for fairly cheap with a 3year support plan.

Is there any laptop that can match Apple's touchpad? This is all I need to know. The touchpad is the only thing that keeps me tied to Apple. It works so wonderful.

Every laptop I've gotten has been good for programming. I been using laptops to code for 20 years. They were mostly HP and Dell. Recently I switched to MSI.

Dell Precision 7530 i7-8750H 32gb ram ... on ebay for less than $950 tax and shipping included ... its super fast ... been running Ubuntu ... very happy

I work on an Tuxedo's "Infinity Book Pro 14" and I have no complains, it has been a wonderful laptop for software development (on Linux).

Lenovo Yoga Slim 7 with Arch Linux. Been on it (or similar Lenovo + Arch combination) for nearly a decade after my MacBook Pro broke. It just works.

ThinkPads... I recommend latest X1 Carbon. Better and more healthy ergonomy with a trackpoint + more durable chachi that handles heat better.

I've been happily using the Dell 55xx series for quite some time now. Though I do mostly use it with external keyboard and screen.

While I am personally a heavy apple user - I'd say for a developer it actually comes down to are there any good non Mac Operating Systems for developers?

The XPS 15, Lenovo X1 Extreme, Rog Zephyrus, and Razer Blade Advanced are all laptops I've personally used for development, and would mostly recommend, however I find windows hard to use for development and linux support varies of course.

Personally, I'd give apple another chance, but if that's not an option, The XPS 15 is probably the best bet.

Lenovo Carbon + Arch Linux, it just works better

I mostly use Macs and dislike most windows laptops. That said, I am impressesed with this ThinkPad I have to use for a client.

last year I got maxed out Tuxedo Pulse 14, which I'm using as a daily driver. so far no complains and it does the job

for business option I got Dell Precision 5470 this summer, and it looks pretty solid so far

Both laptops are running Linux and look like they could last 5 years without any issues, which is usually fairly enough.

Sorry if this was already mentioned, a quick search didn't turn up exact matches to what would be my $0.02.

A simple and relatively safe option would be to go into a computer store that has many machines that can also be tried. Look for a machine with something like 11th gen Intel or AMD 5600U/5800U CPU-s with enough RAM for your needs and decent build quality – this is why it'd be the best to do it in person.

If you find a machine you're happy with regarding its specs and build quality, just throw a reliable GNU+Linux OS on it (Debian with Budgie has been my go-to choice lately), and enjoy your hardware. If you plan on gaming, AMD discrete GPUs will cause less headaches, but nVidia drivers can also be easily installed if you follow the tutorial for your distro of choice.

TLDR: 1–2 year old hardware in a decent chassis running GNU+Linux will likely make you pretty happy for a lot less money.

EDIT: I see Dell being recommended everywhere... All the dead motherboards I've seen in laptops were only in Dells. If you choose a Dell, be sure to get some excellent return policy with it, but even then you may be left without a laptop for a while in the case of failure. This is not the case with business-oriented models though, but Asus, Lenovo, MSI, and even Clevo have proven to be more reliable in my experience. The build quality vaires between brands and model lines, so that you need to experience in person.

regardless of what you buy, I have a 1tb Linux/Ubuntu drive attached to my laptop through USB -c I dual boot into for certain projects. great for gaming/personal on windows and then doing work on the Linux drive. I share files via cloud services if needed and it works seemlessly

I use Lenovo Ideapad 3 Gaming (AMD Ryzen 5) with FreeBSD on top. Pretty much happy with it.

I have a Lenovo L14 with a Ryzen processor.

I switched over from Intel to Ryzen starting at the 4500u series.

How are you sick of customer service experience that you did not experience?

Does Mac have anything like WSL or are you stuck using Virtualbox or Docker?

ThinkPad.

Lenovo X1 Carbon or any real Thinkpad. The keyboards are insanely good.

not really. I've tried a bunch. the biggest problem is the trackpad and just general, every day usability. you can't beat an apple silicon Mac laptop with anything today.

Huawei's macbook lookalike is cheap and overall pretty great

Dell Precision 5540 - running Ubuntu - works great for me. YMMV.

I got Thinkpad x270 for $300. It's vintage and cool.

just get a dell workstation. the precision ones are good. just buy a new one every 2 years when the keyboard/power starts failing.

I will vote Thinkpad X1C.

Had frame.work not been proven out yet?

Huawei Matebook 14 is pretty good.

xps 13 plus, even ships with linux

Anything that can run notepad

lenovo legion are very close to classic thinkpads.

perhaps new gigabyte laptops.

I love my Slimbook

what and where you are developing is important

Sorry: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headline...

Asus.

thinkpad p14s AMD

system76 dot com

You could move to a country that has Apple authorized service centers. Seriously. Or you could get over the scratch and continue living your life. If you believe in that sort of thing.

Should be pretty easy with only a single requirement.

Are you sure alternative brands offer better service?

Also Apple stores will fix your computer outside your country. I remember I got my MacBook’s motherboard replaced in China at no cost.

I’ve owned approximately 8 apple products with essentially zero issues in the past decade sans some slight Bluetooth connection issues with my AirPods Pro. Apple makes the best laptops at the moment and it’s really not close. I’d take my chances if I were you.